Posted on 06/14/2006 9:22:41 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
PARIS - France's highest court upheld George Soros' conviction for insider trading Wednesday in a case dating back nearly 20 years, and the billionaire investor vowed to fight the ruling at the European Court of Human Rights.
The Court of Cassation upheld the 75-year-old American financier's conviction for buying and selling Societe Generale shares in 1988 after receiving information about a planned corporate raid on the bank. Apart from this case, Soros' record is unblemished after five decades in finance.
Lawyer Ron Soffer said Soros planned to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights, saying that the length of the proceedings prevented his client from having a fair trial.
"The investigation started in 1989," he said. "The appeals trial occurred in 2004. How can you call witnesses and ask them about what happened in 1988?"
Soffer also pointed out that France's stock market regulatory authority investigated the matter separately and concluded that Soros did not violate the law or any ethical rules.
French authorities have not yet determined what fine Soros will pay.
In a March 2005 ruling, a French appeals court confirmed a fine of euro2.2 million set by a lower court for the illegal purchase of 95,000 shares in Societe Generale. The Court of Cassation ruled that the fine would be adjusted to reflect Soros' profits, and it ordered the case returned to the appeals court to clarify the amount.
The Hungarian-born businessman has acknowledged that he was told about a Paris financier's plans to take over Societe Generale in late 1988 and began independently acquiring shares in the bank just days later.
But he denied that knowledge of the raid had amounted to insider information or influenced his transactions — which he said were part of a broader, documented strategy of investing in newly privatized French companies. Soros' lawyer said he cooperated with the case from the beginning.
Soros' spokesman, Michael Vachon, called the decision "an absurd miscarriage of justice" and said Soros was confident he would be cleared by the European court.
"As he has from the beginning, George Soros maintains that he engaged in no illegal or unethical conduct," Vachon said in a statement.
Soros, who emigrated to the United States in 1956 and set up Soros Fund Management 17 years later, has billions of dollars under management in his Quantum Fund.
He remains the only person convicted in the Societe Generale affair. Two others, Samir Traboulsi and Jean-Charles Naouri, were acquitted.
At an appeals hearing in 2005, Soros told the court his insider trading conviction had been a "gift to my enemies" in the United States and elsewhere. "My reputation is at stake," he said.
Soros has often drawn criticism for speculating heavily on the collapse of fragile currencies. In 2004 he also angered many conservatives in the United States by pumping US$27 million into election campaigns to try to unseat President George W. Bush.
___
Associated Press Writer Pierre-Antoine Souchard contributed to this report.
Behead him.
$27 million seems fair.
I think they have something in France that can take care of the George Soros problem... THE GUILLOTINE
Ping to some more good news.
Rubbing hands together in delighted GLEE!
Georgian opposition supporters with masks of financier and philanthropist George Soros (L) and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili during a protest outside parliament building in central Tbilisi May 17, 2006.The demonstrators gathered to protest against the policy of Saakashvili's government. REUTERS/Irakli Gedenidze
"Apart from this case, Soros' record is unblemished after five decades in finance."
He's just not gotten caught, since. He's commie filth and socialist garbage.
Let's deport him to the frogs - on the condition that either:[1] they impose the death penalty on him, or [2] He has to share a cell with Chirac, when Chirac's term ends, and he goes to the joint for the no - nos he did as Mayor of Paris.
I always wondered if Soros "escaped" the Holocaust by ditching his uniform.
The two men were immediately arrested by the police. The radical nationalist group Bratstvo (Brotherhood) claimed responsibility for the attack. The group accused Mr Soros of trying to repeat in Ukraine the Georgia-type "velvet revolution" of last November. Some critics have suggested that Mr Soros' Open Society Institute played a role in the ouster of Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, who was forced resigned amid mass public protests. 31 March, 2004
Soros was thirteen years old when Nazi Germany took military control over its ally Hungary (March 19, 1944), and started exterminating over 500,000 Hungarian Jews (about two-thirds of the prewar population) [1]. In the following year, Soros survived the battle of Budapest, as Soviet and Nazi forces fought house-to-house through the city. George first traded currencies during the Hungarian hyperinflation of 1945-46 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros#Early_life
Soro's fine should be every dime he's got.
"Culture of Corruption" Bump!
One wonders how George Soros could trade currencies when he was only a 14 year old Jew during the year 1945
Anyone remember the AP or any MSM outlet writing such about any conservative?
Off with his head.
Good God.
That European Court of Human Rights will be in a pickle over this- on the one hand he may be a crook, but on the other he's an anti-American crook, wonder how they will rule?;)
Oh, I will send money to the French prosecutors. This is sweet.
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